Overall, the skills involved in various aspects of my UTA experience were not closely tailored to teaching, and are different from skills reflecting the aspects of classroom teaching, though not in planning teaching. They included planning course events (exams, homework), communicating, listening, organizing a variety of tasks, and working on the computer with Word, Excel, HTML, and CGI. I filled in for a graduate TA on the first week of class and taught a section of the book, and this involved a different kind of communication. I did not just lecture the material but asked questions leading some of the students to move along the class by their answers. This was one day and was not representative of my typical UTA experience.
There are three types of presentable assessments of the types that occurred or will occur in this paper. My “student self-assessment (public)” involves carrying out the assessment based on criteria that I select and reporting to you through this paper (Hall, 137). My “assessment by teacher (public)” consists of feedback I received from Professor Coughlin (Hall 137).
My self-assessments and my teacher’s assessments through the semester were centered on three main areas: my office hours, my computer work for Professor Coughlin, and my performance at meetings with him. After realizing that my office hours would mostly be spent doing my own work, and that I would unlikely see anyone, I asked Professor Coughlin to make a further announcement that I was available. However, still no students showed up, and I felt somewhat of a lack of incentive to keep the hours diligently, and I was late to office hours on one day. However, this was also the day that my professor came to my office hours the first time to talk to me about a problem set, and he did not find me there. After he told me this, I realized I was wrong to assume that nobody cared about my office hours. At least Professor Coughlin cared that I was there, and there would be a chance that he would want to talk to me then. So my attitude towards that aspect of my task had to change, and it did. I began to see the office hours as another opportunity to further my work for Professor Coughlin. Since then, I think I have kept them diligently though most of the time they are spent alone. Professor Coughlin thanks me for being able available during my office hours.
Regarding my computer work Professor Coughlin, I have not found them hard except for the CGI project; I have always prepared the slides with the exact changes that we agreed upon in time for him to organize them and use them in lectures. I’ve showed resourcefulness. Once I accidentally uploaded the Econ 200 website main page over Professor Coughlin’s personal page. I wasn’t sure if he had a backup… but I did a search for his personal page on Google, found the HTML code in the cache of Professor Coughlin’s personal page stored on the Google server, copied it onto my computer, and uploaded it again. Since then I’ve kept a backup of all of Professor Coughlin’s files on my own computer. Other than that there have been no major mishaps. Professor Coughlin often thanks me for updating the website and also had me show him and the other undergraduate TA how to use the CGI program. He’s also planning to use the slides I made for next fall.
In our personal meetings, I have developed a positive, constructive relationship with Professor Coughlin, and this was mostly accomplished by the first couple weeks of the semester because he makes me feel as if my work and input are valued and appreciated. He is very clear about what he wants, but is also a good listener. I have been willing to be flexible with my time also; I have often met with him for a little more than the prescribed time though it made me late for work. It’s important to do this because I may have to do something for him by the time he meets with the graduate discussion leaders, so that he can discuss what I’ve done with them and get their feedback. I’ve met with the head discussion leader during her office hours a few times when necessary and developed a constructive relationship with her as well. She feels free to e-mail me with a request about the website and I feel free to ask her help when developing homework solutions. One area where I changed my behavior in our personal meetings is that I began to use a notebook organized by date of meeting, and write down as much as I can during my meetings with the Professor. In the beginning I would only take the slides he gave me with notes on them, but I occasionally forgot some detail of the meeting, so I found it better to keep my own notes.
Overall, I am available to Professor Coughlin any day of the week; he often e-mails me or leaves a message on my phone asking for me to do something, and I have always finished his slides before he needs to use them. I have been flexible with meeting times, and Professor Coughlin made it clear that my work is very important to his class, and that he appreciates it greatly. I have learned a lot about class planning and the work that goes on behind the scenes of teaching a large class. Admittedly I have not seen Professor Coughlin teach because I have a class during that time. However, because I have contributed to the class both through suggestions and labor to the satisfaction of Professor Coughlin (from his comments to me), I feel I deserve an A.
At the beginning of the semester I set out three main goals. These were to complete all my assigned tasks effectively, provide insights and use initiative, and to successfully tutor students. I think I achieved two out of these three goals. As I have already written about, I have completed my assigned tasks effectively, and this has been an important aid to Professor Coughlin’s teaching. I have also taken some initiatives and provided some helpful insights this semester. For example, I contacted members of the Economics Association of Maryland directly to get a list of dates where they would be providing free tutoring even when the contact who was supposed to give me the information turned out to be on extended leave. I pointed out some mistakes made in the textbook and suggested how to word some of the slides to make them clearer. I set up appointments with the head discussion leader when I couldn’t get into contact with the discussion leader who was supposed to have the information I needed. I decided to meet a student outside of my office hours when he said the regular hours were inconvenient, even though the student didn’t show up.
This leads into the third goal, which I did not accomplish. The reason for this is that, despite posting my hours on the website and syllabus, and despite Professor Coughlin having announced it, the students did not feel comfortable in asking a stranger for tutoring who they had not seen. My visibility was not high enough. The other reason I think is that my office hours, while convenient for meetings of Professor Coughlin and I, may not have been convenient for students. I kept expecting that the number of students would increase suddenly towards the end of the semester, but it did not occur. In retrospect, I should have asked students to let me know if the hours posted were not convenient for them, and let them know that I was willing to be flexible. Also, I would say that my goals changed during the semester away from the tutoring focus and towards doing the clerical work. I started expecting a balance between tutoring and clerical work and ended up focusing on the latter.
What have I learned? Looking back on what I wrote in my journals, I wrote a lot about what I have been doing but not a lot about what I have learned. Before taking this class, I had no idea what it was like to plan a class or teach at the college level. My only previous experience was a high school class teaching four year olds. I assumed that professors just lecture the same thing every year, especially a seasoned Professor like Professor Coughlin. I didn’t realize how much he changes every one of his lectures every year. This may not reflect all professors, but Professor Coughlin is serious about making his lectures better every year based on feedback from the past. He’s always remarking about some remark or valid complaint made by a student and how to fix the problem. Another big aspect of teaching I didn’t realize before was dealing with teaching assistants and organizing their labor. Dealing with the teaching assistants can almost take up as much work as it saves, as was mentioned in our class readings. Professor Coughlin alots a great deal of his time for meeting with me and the graduate discussion leaders. He’s like the manager of a small corporation, coordinating tasks in a short chain of command. This is what I’ve learned about his work.
Personally, the biggest thing I’ve learned is the organization of tasks. Organization has usually been my weak point, and I get by in classes with a minimal of planning and considerable procrastination, but with the UTA responsibility, there are a lot more deadlines than for any individual class, and on some weeks even all my other classes put together. The UTA must also be very sensitive to detail, because a small mistake is more than just the loss of points on an assignment, but could result in a misunderstanding or inconvenience to hundreds of students. The classroom is a ship on the high seas that I help guide without ever seeing the passengers. What I’ve learned most of all this semester is how to keep a running calendar and to-do list, and update this with e-mails, phone messages, and information I gather in meetings with Professor Coughlin, or with the head discussion leader.
Obviously I was not observed by anyone, but I did observe my journal partner in his setting as UTA of an art class. I had some idea of what an art class does because I was in a studio art class in the spring of 2003, which I enjoyed immensely. However, this was not a drawing class (which I took) but a watercolor class, and one where the students worked on three-dimensional projects. My journal partner, Mark, explained to me his lifelong interest on the first day of class. He recently returned to school as an adult student after making enough money in the dental profession to retire and pursue his true passion. I don’t remember what his exact job was, perhaps anesthesiologist. Mark asked me some thought-provoking questions in his journal responses, such as whether or not I was enjoying my experience and whether I would like to teach in the future. I thought that I would not like to teach in the future, but did not get enough of an experience to judge how teaching would be entirely. Mark’s experience was very different from mine because he was in the class every day. But he also enjoyed what he was doing and prepared some things on his own time for the class, such as a how-to packet for one of their projects. Mark was also able to bring in some of his own work to show to the class. The professor allowed him considerable independence and leeway. The main lesson I got from all this is that there are so many different methods of teaching within academics. Teaching studio art and economics lecture are very, very different. Teaching a big lecture and a small seminar would be very different as well, just as there are big differences taking them. However, I think the differences are reflected to a greater degree in teaching, because teaching is a more holistic and involved type of responsibility with relation to the course. We discussed the differences between straight lecture and critical thinking in class. There are also big differences depending on the subject you teach, because it is reflected in who your students are.
Overall, this is an experience of more limited value for me since I acted as a personal assistant rather than a classroom teacher or tutor. However my original purpose in doing this program was not mainly to tutor, but just to assist Professor Coughlin, and I have accomplished that purpose and I have learned the rewards of accomplishing that purpose.
Source
Hall, K. (1992). Co-Assessment: The Bridge Between Student Self-Assessment and Teacher-Assessment. 12th Annual International Seminar for Teacher Education, p134-144.